"Jane M. Lindskold - Teapot" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lindskold Jane)

Teapot
Jane M. Lindskold
They were stuffing me into the teapot again. I'd been sleeping, which I feel is the only reasonable
way to get through an eternal tea party. Now, without a proper pause to come around, I was struggling
to keep my nose out of the tea, my paws sliding on the soggy mash at the bottom of the china pot. My
struggles did me no good.
With a resounding "Heave! Ho!" the Mad Hatter and the March Hare popped my haunches in
through the opening and I heard the lid rattle into place.
My head went completely under but I managed to twist until the tip of my nose poked enough
above the surface that I could breathe. Then I heard the Hatter speaking to the Hare.
"May I have some more tea?"
"Of course," he grunted as he raised the teapot, heavier by one soaked dormouse.
The teapot tilted and though I scrabbled with my paws against the slick china, I was poured out
through the spout, landing indecorously on my haunches on something hard.
Someone screamedтАФa high, shrill noise that curled my wet whiskers.
I blinked tea from my eyes. The tea table had vanished. Instead of having poured out amid the
clutter of cups, saucers, and bread and butter plates, I was sitting on a blue-and-white tiled floor,
surrounded by all manner of polished cabinets. A large fireplace with a kettle on the hob dominated one
wall.
Three large faces, each nearly as large as my entire body, were staring down at me. One face was
dominated by a large red "O" that I realized, as an afterthought, was a mouth.
"Good heavens, Elsie," said one. "What is that!"
"I don't know, Lacie," Elsie replied. "Do you know, Tillie?"
"I most certainly do not." TillieтАФwho was apparently the screamerтАФleaned forward. "It looks
rather like a rat, but it's too fat. Perhaps it is a rabbit."
"No, it cannot be a rabbit," Lacie interrupted bossily. "It doesn't have long enough ears. Could it be
a guinea pig?"
"Can't be," Tillie shot back. "It has a tail. Guinea pigs don't have tails."
I yawned mightily. I couldn't think of the last time I had been awake for this long.
"I am a dormouse," I started to explain, but Tillie was screaming again.
"Look at those horrible teeth!" she shrieked, backing away, crashing into Lacie, and bringing them
both to the floor.
Elsie darted over to help them to their feet. Viewing the chaos critically, I decided to take my leave
without completing my introduction.
Everything in the room seemed to be on an unnecessarily large scale, but a big door is as good as a
small one when it comes to making an exit. Once through the door, I found myself in a completely
different area. The white and blue tiles had vanished along with the tall counters and gleaming brass and
chrome fixtures. In their place were grassy lawns and towering trees. The sun blazed overhead,
indecently bright.
I scurried off to the shade of a nearby oak. I desperately wanted a nap, but more urgent than my
desire for sleep was my fear that I was stranded in this strange realm. I knew how these things worked.
Logically, as I had come here by being poured from a teapot, so I needed a teapot to return. I had seen
a teapot on the hob in the room I had vacated, so I needed to get back to it. While I worried over how I
was going to manage this, sleep claimed me.
I awoke to a dreadful shock. The sun had moved. When I had fallen asleep, it had been directly
overhead. Now it was midway on the western horizon. However, this place of horrors was not through
shaking my sanity. When I looked back to where the door had been, I now saw a towering structure
replete with towers, porches, gables, and lace-curtained windows. It was bordered with bright flower
beds.
My door was still there, but from this vantage it was much smaller than I recalled. I wondered if I